West Seattle Crime Watch: Mail theft; tagging; cars … cased?

Three West Seattle Crime Watch reader reports tonight – mail theft, vandalism, and suspicious early-morning behavior around neighborhood cars – read on:

First: Received from Sarah tonight:

We live at Walnut and Lander in North Admiral off Hiawatha park.

Our outgoing mail was stolen out of mailbox around 4 pm today. At that time about six young white youth rang our doorbell to ask for money for the YMCA. I said no thanks and noticed my outgoing letter was missing and that no new mail had been left by our postman. I assumed that we had not received any mail today which is uncommon. I followed the youth to the sidewalk and noticed they did not stop at my neighbors’ home and turned the corner at Forest.

When our mailman did come by I realized my outgoing letter was stolen. I followed the path the fundraising youth had taken down to Forest and found my envelope open crumbled, my check ripped into pieces but the four page application was missing. There is nothing of importance there.

My neighbor North of me reported the youth did stop at his home too.

As mail theft is a federal crime, I have reported this to the police.

Separate from whether the solicitors had anything to do with the missing mail, since this doubles as a door-to-door alert of sorts, we’re checking with the Y to see if they actually have sanctioned door-to-door donation-seeking going on right now.

This morning, Becky e-mailed a report of what looked like car casing, at the very least:

Good Morning, at approximately 3:45 am this morning I heard a car drive by which isn’t unusual. The car was driving west on Lincoln Park Way SW and took a left onto Murray Av SW. I got up to look as I typically do and saw a big burgundy (dark red) 4 door drive by. There were two people in the car but I could only see the passenger, an older white male.

The car drove slowly by my place and continued north on Murray only to come back a few minutes later – backward. The car parked at the neighboring complex and the driver got out in dark clothing and didn’t close the door completely making that solid sound of closing all the way. He went to the trunk and didn’t allow the lid to go all the way up, I could hear his head hit the lid a couple of times. He went back to the driver’s door and got a dark, unmarked ball cap out and put in on, I already had seen his short, light colored hair.

The man got out two dark bags, one black and the other dark green, from the trunk and placed them on the ground and put the lid down until the light went out, he didn’t close it to secure it. He began walking with the two bags and I thought he was going to take the walk way up to the neighboring building, he did not. He continued up the street in front of me, I’m a bit off the ground and I couldn’t believe he didn’t see me.

The man walked right up to one of my neighbor’s cars and went to the hood and set the bags down. At this point I shouted out that I was calling the police which I was already dialing. I had already gotten the plate number as he parked (just in case). … This occurred around 3:45 to 3:58 am, when I called 911.

And from Austin, a vandalism report:

Left the house this morning to see that someone had “tagged” our mailbox with permanent marker with (three letters). Saw the same letters all over the new Findlay RapidRide shelter while I was waiting for the bus. Lovely way to start the short week; I thought folks might want to keep an eye out.

Austin included a photo, though we can’t use it because it’s too close-up to make much sense if we blurred it as we usually do with tagging, but we can say that the marker was bright red; the first letter was a capital A, and the second two were written lower-case. P.S. If you spot graffiti/tagging vandalism on a bus shelter or other Metro facility, here’s the hotline for reporting it (according to a page we found on the county website) – 206-263-6369.

10 Replies to "West Seattle Crime Watch: Mail theft; tagging; cars ... cased?"

  • Josh Sutton - Y Director May 29, 2012 (11:27 pm)

    At the YMCA we do most of our community outreach through volunteers calling on people they know, or on our current members and donors. We don’t typically go door to door. Also, our Partners With Youth fundraising campaign happens in February. Our Y’s work in the schools has young people out doing good in the community, often with projects like litter cleanup, planting new gardens, helping with community events. Very sorry that this happened to you and that the young men misrepresented themselves as being from the YMCA.

  • C May 30, 2012 (12:41 am)

    WSB,
    How come there’s no published time on the new website layout? I like to know exactly when something was posted.

    • WSB May 30, 2012 (12:51 am)

      We haven’t changed anything on the main site (aside from adding features like the restaurant guide and new event calendar), so I assume you mean the mobile design? Long story short, we were forced into an “upgrade” mandated by the software providers, but it changed a few things we didn’t want changed, and we’re still trying to get them changed back. The time stamps are still there on the main site, and you can always default to that by using the control at the bottom of any mobile page. – TR

  • Brandon May 30, 2012 (6:30 am)

    UPS Package was taken off my porch on weds of last week. However we didnt know about it until late sunday when we though to check the tracking number. We live around Othello (by the old fire station). Stupid thieves.

  • a May 30, 2012 (9:24 am)

    Just a tip for leaving outgoing mail for your postman. Do NOT leave the flag on your mailbox up when you have outgoing mail in it. You are just advertising that you have outgoing mail in there and are making yourself a target. Put the mail in there and leave the flag down. Your postman will notice the outgoing mail whether your flag is up or not.

  • cruzer May 30, 2012 (10:23 am)

    Thank you both for reporting these crimes to police!!

  • Ari G May 30, 2012 (1:16 pm)

    There is some shady stuff going around in the neighborhood around the old fire station. My mother’s house has been broken into TWICE in the last month, and had jewelery taken. Keep your ears perked, WSBers.

  • Iris May 30, 2012 (3:38 pm)

    Our car, parked on 37th at Dawson, was broken into on Sunday night. Reported to police – but just an FYI to those in the hood to pay attention. Ouch.

  • Bill May 30, 2012 (7:53 pm)

    Had a locking gas cap taken off and gas siphoned last week — Arbor Heights — sometime – 12 to 2:30 am.

  • churchlady May 31, 2012 (1:22 pm)

    Something strange happemed in front of my home lastweek but not sure who/how to report this too. A man in a van,packed with clothing&junk drove down my dead end stree,got put and changed his shirt.He was white,chubby,scruffy looking,mid 40’s. A couple of days later,I noticed the same loud van,this time he parked right in front of my home,opened his door,black back pack in hand and he shook out the bag to empty it,then jumped in the van and drove off. I walked over to see what contents were dumped and found a ladys watch. I picked it up and put it in my house. To whom should I notify?

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